Latest revision as of 12:45, 13 July 2009

ON the next morning, at daybreak, we quitted the trench again
in order to rest for two days. We went across the fields and took
up quarters at Cerney-en-Dormois. We lodged in one of the abandoned
houses in the center of the village. Our field kitchen had not
yet arrived, so we were obliged to find our own food. Members
of the feathered tribe were no longer to be discovered, but if
by any chance a chicken showed its head it was immediately chased
by a score of men. No meat being found we resolved to be vegetarians
for the time being, and roamed through the gardens in search of
potatoes and vegetables. On that expedition we discovered an officer's
horse tied to a fence. We knew by experience that the saddle bags
of officers' horses always concealed something that could be eaten.
We were hungry enough, and quickly resolved to lead the horse
away. We searched him thoroughly under "cover," and
found in the saddle bags quite a larder of fine foodstuffs, butter
and lard among them. Then we turned the horse loose and used the
captured treasure to prepare a meal, the like of which we had
not tasted for a long time.

It tasted fine in spite of our guilty conscience. One man made
the fire, another peeled the potatoes, etc. Pots and a stove we
found in one of the kitchens of the houses in the neighborhood.

Towards evening long trains with provisions and endless rows
of fresh troops arrived. In long columns they marched to the front
and relieved the exhausted men. Soon the whole place was crowded
with soldiers. After a two days' rest we had to take up again
the regular night duties of the sapper. Every night we had to
visit the position to construct wire entanglements. The noise
caused by the ramming in of the posts mostly drew the attention
of the French upon us, and thus we suffered losses almost every
night. But our rest during the daytime was soon to be put an end
to, for the enemy's artillery began to shell the place regularly.
Curiously enough, the shelling took place always at definite hours.
Thus, at the beginning, every noon from 12 to 2 o'clock from fifty
to eighty shells used to fall in the place. At times the missiles
were shrapnel from the field artillery. One got accustomed to
it, though soldiers of other arms were killed or wounded daily.
Once we were lying at noon in our lodgings when a shrapnel shell
exploded in our room, happily without doing any damage. The whole
room was filled with dust and smoke, but not one troubled to leave
his place. That sort of shooting was repeated almost daily with
increasing violence. The remaining inhabitants of the village,
mostly old people, were all lodged in a barn for fear of espionage.
There they were guarded by soldiers. As the village was being
bombarded always at certain hours the officer in command of the
place believed that somebody in the village communicated with
the enemy with a hidden telephone. They even went so far as to
remove the hands of the church clock, because somebody had seen
quite distinctly "that the hands of the clock (which was
not going) had moved and were pointing to 6 and immediately afterwards
to 5."

Of course, the spy that had signaled to the enemy by means
of the church clock could be discovered as little as the man with
the concealed telephone. But in order to be quite sure to catch
the "real" culprit all the civilians were interned in
the barn. Those civilian prisoners were provided with food and
drink like the soldiers, but like the soldiers they were also
exposed to the daily bombardment, which gradually devastated the
whole village. Two women and a child had already been killed in
consequence and yet the people were not removed. Almost daily
a house burned down at some spot or other in the village, and
the shells now began falling at 8 o'clock in the evening. The
shells were of a large size. We knew exactly that the first shell
arrived punctually at 8 o'clock, and we left the place every night.
The whole village became empty, and exactly at 8 o'clock the first
shell came buzzing heavily over to our side. At short intervals,
fourteen or sixteen at the most, but never more, followed it.
Those sixteen we nicknamed the "iron portion." Our opinion
was that the gun was sent forward by the French when it became
dark, that it fired a few shots, and was then taken to the rear
again. When we returned from our" walk," as we called
that nightly excursion, we had to go to our positions. There we
had to perform all imaginable kinds of work. One evening we had
to fortify a small farm we had taken from the French the day before.
We were to construct machine-gun emplacements. The moon was shining
fairly brightly. In an adjoining garden there were some fruit
trees, an apple tree among them, with some apples still attached
to it. A Frenchman had hanged himself on that tree. Though the
body must have hung for some days ---for it smelled considerably---some
of our sappers were eager to get the apples. The soldiers took
the apples without troubling in the least about the dead man.

Near that farm we used mine throwers for the first time. The
instruments we used there were of a very primitive kind. They
consisted of a pipe made of strong steel plate and resting on
an iron stand. An unexploded shell or shrapnel was filled with
dynamite, provided with a fuse and cap, and placed in the tube
of the mine thrower. Behind it was placed a driving charge of
black powder of a size corresponding with the distance of the
target and the weight of the projectile. The driving charge, too,
was provided with a fuse that was of such a length that the explosion
was only produced after the man lighting the fuse had had time
to return to a place of safety. The fuse of the mine was lit at
the same time as the former, but was of a length commensurate
with the time of flight of the mine, so as to explode the latter
when the mine struck the target, or after a calculated period
should the mark be missed. The driving charge must be of such
strength that it throws the projectile no farther than is intended.
The mine thrower is not fired horizontally but at a steep angle.
The tube from which the mine is fired is, for instance, placed
at an angle of 45 degrees, and receives a charge of fifteen grammes
of black powder when the distance is 400 yards.

It happens that the driving charge does not explode, and the
projectile remains in the tube. The fuse of the mine continues
burning, and the mine explodes in the tube and demolishes the
stand and everything in its neighborhood. When we used those mine
throwers here for the first time an accident of the kind described
happened. Two volunteers and a sapper who were in charge of the
mine thrower in question thought the explosion took too long a
time. They believed it was a miss. When they had approached to
the distance of some five paces the mine exploded and all three
of them were wounded very severely. We had too little experience
in the management of mine throwers. They had been forgotten, had
long ago been thrown on the junk heap, giving way to more modern
technical appliances of war. Thus, when they suddenly cropped
up again during the war of position, we had to learn their management
from the beginning. The officers, who understood those implements
still less than we ourselves did, could not give us any hints,
so it was no wonder that accidents like the foregoing happened
frequently.

Those mine throwers cannot be employed for long distances;
at 600 yards they reach the utmost limit of their effectiveness.

Besides handling the mine throwers we had to furnish secret
patrols every night. The chief purpose of those excursions was
the destruction of the enemy's defenses or to harry the enemy's
sentries so as to deprive them of sleep.

We carried hand grenades for attack and defense. When starting
on such an excursion we were always instructed to find out especially
the number of the army section that an opponent we might kill
belonged to. The French generally have their regimental number
on the collars of their coat or on their cap. So whenever we "spiflicated
" one and succeeded in getting near him we would cut that
number out of his coat with a knife or take away his coat or cap.
In that way the German army command identified the opposing army
corps. They thus got to know exactly the force our opponent was
employing and whether his best troops were in front of us. All
of us greatly feared those night patrols, for the hundreds of
men killed months ago were still lying between the lines. Those
corpses were decomposed to a pulp. So when a man went on nocturnal
patrol duty and when he had to crawl in the utter darkness on
hands and knees over all those bodies he would now and then land
in the decomposed faces of the dead. If then a man happened to
have a tiny wound in his hands his life was greatly endangered
by the septic virus. As a matter of fact three sappers and two
infantrymen of the landwehr regiment No. 17 died in consequence
of poisoning by septic virus. Later on that kind of patroling
was given up or only resorted to in urgent cases, and only such
men were employed who were free of wounds. That led to nearly
all of us inflicting skin wounds to ourselves to escape patrol
duty.

Our camping place, Cerney-en-Dormois, was still being bombarded
violently by the enemy every day. The firing became so heavy at
last that we could no longer sleep during the day. The large shells
penetrated the houses and reached the cellars. The civilian prisoners
were sent away after some had been killed by shells. We ourselves,
however, remained in the place very much against our inclination
in spite of the continuous bombardment. Part of our company lived
in a large farmhouse, where recently arrived reserves were also
lodged. One day, at noon, the village was suddenly overwhelmed
by a hail of shells of a large size. Five of them struck the farmhouse
mentioned, almost at the same time. All the men were resting in
the spacious rooms. The whole building was demolished, and our
loss consisted of 17 dead and 98 wounded men. The field kitchen
in the yard was also completely destroyed. Without waiting for
orders we all cleared out of the village and collected again outside.
But the captain ordered us to return to the place because, so
he said, he had not yet received orders from the divisional commander
to evacuate the village. Thereupon we went back to our old quarters
and embarked again on a miserable existence. After living in the
trenches during the night, in continual danger of life, we arrived
in the morning, after those hours of trial, with shattered nerves,
at our lodgings. We could not hope to get any rest and sleep,
for the shells kept falling everywhere in the village. In time,
however, one becomes accustomed to everything. When a shell came
shrieking along we knew exactly whereabout it would strike. By
the sound it made we knew whether it was of large or small size
and whether the shell, having come down, would burst or not. Similarly
the soldiers formed a reliable judgment in regard to the nationality
of an aeroplane. When an aeroplane was seen at a great distance
near the horizon the soldiers could mostly say exactly whether
it was a German or a French flying machine. It is hard to say
by what we recognized the machines. One seems to feel whether
it is a friend or a foe that is coming. Of course, a soldier also
remembers the characteristic noise of the motor and the construction
of the aeroplane.

When a French flier passed over our camp the streets would
quickly empty themselves. The reason was not that we were afraid
of the flying man; we disappeared because we knew that a bombardment
would follow after he had landed and reported. We left the streets
so as to convey the impression that the place was denuded of troops.
But the trick was not of much use. Every day houses were set alight,
and the church, which had been furnished as a hospital, was also
struck several times.

Up to that time it had been comparatively quiet at the front.
We had protected our position with wide wire entanglements. Quite
a maze of trenches, a thing that defies description, had been
constructed. One must have seen it in order to comprehend what
immense masses of soil had been dug up.

Our principal position consisted of from 6 to 8 trenches, one
behind the other and each provided with strong parapets and barbed
wire entanglements; each trench had been separately fortified.
The distance between the various trenches was sometimes 20 yards,
sometimes a hundred and more, all according to the requirements
of the terrain. All those positions were joined by lines of approach.
Those connecting roads are not wide, are only used by the relieving
troops and for transporting purposes, and are constructed in a
way that prevents the enemy from enfilading them; they run in
a zigzag course. To the rear of the communication trenches are
the shelters of the resting troops (reserves). Two companies of
infantry, for instance, will have to defend in the first trench
a section of the front measuring some two hundred yards. One company
is always on duty, whilst the other is resting in the rear. However,
the company at rest must ever be ready for the firing line and
is likely to be alarmed at any minute for service at a moment's
notice should the enemy attack. The company is in telephonic communication
with the one doing trench duty. Wherever the country (as on swampy
ground) does not permit the construction of several trenches and
the housing of the reserves the latter are stationed far in the
rear, often in the nearest village. In such places, relieving
operations, though carried out only at night are very difficult
and almost always accompanied by casualties.

Relief is not brought up at fixed hours, for the enemy must
be deceived. But the enemy will be informed of local conditions
by his fliers, patrols or the statements of prisoners, and will
keep the country under a continual heavy curtain fire, so that
the relieving troops coming up across the open field almost always
suffer losses. Food and ammunition are also forwarded at night.
The following incident will illustrate the difficulty even one
man by himself experiences in approaching such positions.

Myself, a sergeant, and three others had been ordered on secret
patrol duty one night. Towards ten o'clock we came upon the line
of the curtain fire. We were lying flat on the ground, waiting
for a favorable opportunity to cross. However, one shell after
the other exploded in front of us, and it would have been madness
to attempt to pass at that point. Next to me lay a sapper of my
own annual military class; nothing could be seen of the sergeant
and the two other privates. On a slight elevation in front of
us we saw in the moonlight the shadowy forms of some persons who
were lying flat on the ground like ourselves. We thought it impossible
to pass here. My mate, pointing to the shapes before us said,
"There's Sergeant Mertens and the others; I think I'll go
up to them and tell him that we had better wait a while until
it gets more quiet." "Yes; do so," I replied. He
crawled to the place on his hands and knees, and I observed him
lying near the others. He returned immediately. The shapes turned
out to be four dead Frenchmen of the colonial army, who had been
there for weeks. He had only seen who they were when he received
no answer to his report. The dead thus lay scattered over the
whole country. Nothing could be seen of the sergeant and the other
men. So we seized a favorable opportunity to slip through, surrounded
by exploding shells. We could find out nothing about our
companions. Our search in the trench was likewise unsuccessful;
nobody could give us the slightest information though sappers
were well known among the infantry, because we had to work at
all the points of the front. An hour later the relieving infantry
arrived. They had lost five men in breaking through the barrier
fire. Our sergeant was among the wounded they brought in. Not
a trace was ever found of the two other soldiers. Nobody knew
what had become of them.

Under such and similar conditions we spent every night outside.
We also suffered losses in our camp almost every day. Though reserves
from our garrison town had arrived twice already our company had
a fighting strength of only 75 men. But at last we cleared out
of the village, and were stationed at the village of Boucoville,
about a mile and a half to the northeast of Cerney-en-Dormois.
Cerney-en-Dormois was gradually shelled to pieces, and when at
night we had to go to the trench we described a wide circle around
that formerly flourishing village.

At Boucoville we received the first letters from home by the
field post. They had been on their journey for a long, long time,
and arrived irregularly and in sheaves. But many were returned,
marked, "Addressee killed," "Addressee missing,"
"Wounded." However, many had to be marked, "Addressee
no longer with the army detachment." They could not quite
make out the disappearance of many "addressees," but
many of us had just suspicions about them, and we wished good
luck to those "missing men " in crossing some neutral
frontier.

The letters we received were dated the first days of August,
had wandered everywhere, bore the stamps of various field post-offices
and, in contrast with the ones we received later on, were still
full of enthusiasm. Mothers were not yet begging their sons not
to risk their lives in order to gain the iron cross; that imploring
prayer should arrive later on again and again. It was also at
that place that we received the first of those small field post-parcels
containing cigars and chocolate.

After staying some ten weeks in that part of the country we
were directed to another part of the front. Nobody knew, however,
whither we were going to be sent. It was all the same to us. The
chance of getting out of the firing line for a few days had such
a charm for us that our destination did not concern us in the
least. It gave us a wonderful feeling of relief, when we left
the firing zone on our march to the railroad station at Challerange.
For the first time in a long period we found ourselves in a state
of existence where our lives were not immediately endangered;
even the most far-reaching guns could no longer harm us. A man
must have lived through such moments in order to appreciate justly
the importance of such a feeling. However much one has got accustomed
to being in constant danger of one's life, that danger never ceases
to oppress one, to weigh one down.

At the station we got into a train made up of second and third-class
coaches. The train moved slowly through the beautiful autumnal
landscape, and for the first time we got an insight into the life
behind the front. All the depots, the railroad crossings and bridges
were held by the military. There all the men of the landsturm
were apparently leading quite an easy life, and had made themselves
comfortable in the depots and shanties of the road-men. They all
looked well nourished and were well clad. Whenever the train stopped
those older men treated us liberally to coffee, bread, and fruit.
They could see by our looks that we had not had the same good
time that they were having. They asked us whence we came. Behind
the front things were very lively everywhere. At all the larger
places we could see long railway trains laden with agricultural
machinery of every description. The crew of our train were men
of the Prusso-Hessian state railroads. They had come through those
parts many times before, and told us that the agricultural machines
were being removed from the whole of the occupied territory and
sent to East Prussia in order to replace what the Russians had
destroyed there. The same was being done with all industrial machinery
that could be spared. Again and again one could observe the finest
machines on their way to Germany.

Towards midnight we passed Sédan. There we were fed
by the Red Cross. The Red Cross had erected feeding stations for
passing troops in long wooden sheds. Early next morning we found
ourselves at Montmédy. There we had to leave the train,
and were allowed to visit the town for a few hours.